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Comment by yieldcrv | Hacker News Reader

Congratulations miners, validators, and hosted validator services!

Big win for sustainability and industry!

A recent study by an American governmental organisation (I don't remember which) recently showed that Bitcoin can be used to reduce methane emissions. This in turn would make Bitcoin mining and Proof-of-work net carbon negative (significantly so if my memory of the graph accompanying the news isn't letting me down).

edit: also, this is a new frontier that combines the best of both worlds for energy suppliers, bitcoin miners, governments and the environment.

Let's be clear: Bitcoin is NOT reducing methane emissions or carbon emissions. Crypto mining cannot reduce anything. This is just a straw man.

The study you reference discussed burning waste methane to turn into electricity, rather than gas flaring.

That electricity could be used for anything. Water desalination, stored for grid balancing, powering agricultural needs or offsetting the electrical needs of the gas facilities.

> That electricity could be used for anything. Water desalination, stored for grid balancing, powering agricultural needs or offsetting the electrical needs of the gas facilities.

No it precisely could not, because there's no transport infrastructure, storage or grid balancer there.

That's why they were flaring in the first place.

sigh, one of these days, I'm going to be able to downvote despite being heavily suppressed for having a fact-based opinion about Bitcoin, which is the result of literally years of study. Until then, you have my upvote.

Let’s talk about modern technologies pls

These are modern technologies. The infrastructure to use the methane isn't there, so it needs to be monetized locally. Bitcoin mining is one of the very few options available to do this at scale.

Bitcoin is by no mean a modern technology at this point.

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